2015-16 smu

mood: whiskey

The excuses don't quite cut it.

Yes, Michigan didn't have their starting point guard, Yes, they went on the road against a good SMU squad, and couldn't fly to Dallas until this morning. Yes, they're young and inexperienced. Yes, Caris LeVert had an uncharacteristically awful game.

The Mustangs managed to weather the loss of one of their key players, though, flourishing despite the departure of Markus Kennedy in the opening minute. The issues that have plagued Michigan's defense all season came to the fore tonight; SMU got dunk after dunk after dunk created by all-too-easy dribble penetration; the Mustangs didn't miss often, but when they did, they were more likely than not to grab the rebound; they rained in 8-of-15 threes on more open looks created by shoddy perimeter defense.

Walton's absence doesn't explain all of that. Youth only goes so far. Same for weather-impacted travel plans.

LeVert went 1-for-13 tonight. Without him carrying the load, only Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman and Duncan Robinson could crack double-digit points. Even with the extenuating circumstances taken into account, Michigan remains too reliant on one player to carry the load on one end, and they're entirely too lost on the other to make up for it.

Michigan's next four opponents, each ranked worse than 250th on KenPom, all come to Crisler. That's welcome news for a team that needs to do quite a bit of tuning up before they're ready to take on the Big Ten.

THE ESSENTIALS

Right: Larry Brown, champion of "the right way," rocking on. [Fuller]

THE US

Derrick Walton's status is still very much up in the air due to his ankle injury. At yesterday's presser, John Beilein said he's going to be careful handling Walton's return:

Beilein didn’t know on Monday if Walton would play, but noted that he learned his lesson last season of rushing Walton back from injury.

“If he does try and play and he can’t do it, he’s got to come out,” Beilein said. “It’s a very tender area of your body, and you also want to make sure that you don’t hurt him for down the road. An ankle injury will plague you all year long if you don’t allow it to heal.”

That doesn't make it sound like Walton will play tonight, let alone be a full go.

THE LAST TIME

This is the second game of a home-and-home after the Wolverines took on SMU at Crisler last December. Coming off three straight losses, Michigan hung tight through most of the game, but poor shooting (8/36 3P) doomed them to an eventual 62-51 loss after a late Mustang run went unanswered.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]